HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Jacob loves to carve pumpkins every year!

We had fun decorating as always. The kids put their homemade crafts in the window. We didn't go all the way this year with the boiling cauldron and black light, but it was still super festive!

Here I am, armed and ready with plenty of candy for the trick-or-treaters!

Here are the kids at our babysitter Jean's clubhouse. We always drive over to visit her on Halloween evening for a bit. Paul (Christina's boyfriend) and Christina did some last minute deadly make-up. Christina is the little girl form the Tower of Terror ride at Disney. Pretty creepy. Matthew looked awesome as a pirate! Joshua switched from being Spiderman the day before at Pre-K, to a Ninja on Halloween night. Good thing we keep all of Matthew's old costumes for plenty of options!

The kids and I. I was sad that Jacob had to work this Halloween. First time he had to miss one and it wasn't the same!

On Friday, Joshua's Pre-K class had a fall festival. Here they are frosting their cookies!

Joshua and his friends. Waiting for more treats!!

Joshua's Pre-K class singing songs. They are so cute!

PAPER WORK.

Switching from Taiwan to a China adoption has meant what? More paper work? YES.

Here is what we have accomplished in the last 4 weeks:

Home Study Visits
Local Police clearances - notarized
FDLE Background checks - received
DCF Clearances
Previous States' DCF Clearances
Certified Financial Statement - notarized
Ordered extra original certified copies of our birth certificates and marriage license
Employment Verification Letters requested
4 New reference letters
Copies of past 3 years tax returns
Jacob's notarized medical form, complete with blood tests
Annie's notarized medical form, complete with blood tests
Downloaded the USCIS immigration I-800A and completed
Copies of passports
Collected family/home photos

This is just the beginning.

In addition to all of these, I have been working a lot of extra hours to pay for each step. God has blessed me with plenty of hours doing work that I enjoy!

According to most people, we are aloud to post photos of the little girl we are pursuing once we have Pre- Approval from China, which we do. But we are pretty sure we are going to wait for LOA (letter of approval) since we have not officially logged into China yet. So that won't be for another couple months.

OUR FALL FUN AT A GLANCE! MAINLY CONSISTING OF FOOTBALL, FOOTBALL AND MORE FOOTBALL.

We have been so busy working on updating our adoption paperwork, I haven't had any time to blog! So I decided to just post some of our fall photos and leave it at that!

This is Jacob and I. Mom and Dad. Ready to take on the carpooling, practice, uniforms, costumes, games and shows!

Matthew. Focused and always ready to play at his best. He LOVES Football. He never says that he doesn't want to play. He is always ready to get out there and go, go go!

Let's just say it is HOT here in Florida. We can hardly make it through the game just watching. I don't know how the boys keep going out in the heat, but they do!

Matthew with some of his best buddies from school and from football. An awesome group of kids.

We went to Auburn Alabama for a quick weekend trip to attend Jacob's cousin's daughter's wedding. We had so much fun visiting with family. I was so happy we got a half way decent family photo with us all cleaned up nice! :)

We celebrated Joshua's birthday in Alabama. That cake was beautiful and delicious! Thanks Lolli!

What better thing to do in Auburn than to go to an Auburn University football game???!!!! Joshua was ready to go and ran ahead of us, dressed for the game, tail and all. GO TIGERS!

Matthew, Joshua and Christina waiting to enter the stadium.

We got to sit with the band! Jacob was the drum major for AU back in school!

Back at Jim and Kathey's house, the boys played in the yard in the beautiful Alabama fall weather. What did they play? What else... football.

Christina plays Alto Sax in her high school marching band. She loves it and has so much fun. She also still takes dance classes as well. We spend all week either at Pee Wee Football or High School Football.

Marching back from pre-game. I will have to go and get better pics with their hats on.

The band does and awesome job in their half time show!

Last, but certainly not least, Christina and her boyfriend, Paul, had a wonderful time at their homecoming dance! Aren't they cute?

JOSHUA IS 5!!

Happy Birthday to our sweet Joshua! He turned 5 years old yesterday. Joshua is our very busy, really talkative, super inquisitive and wonderfully creative little boy. He keeps us entertained with all of his thoughts and ideas. Life is never boring with Joshua around and I couldn't imagine one single day without his happy face! Thank you Lord for Joshua.

WE HAVE SOME VERY EXCITING WORDS AND ACRONYMS TO SHARE!

Okay - Do these words below mean anything to you?

VIEW FILE

DR REVIEW

REQUEST MATCH

LOCKED IN

LOI

PA

These might not make total sense to my Taiwan adoption friends, but to the China adoption friends, they probably do. Just slightly different lingo.

We have a little girl from China that we are (barring any unforeseen circumstances) adopting!!!

Yes, I said China! We have sort of come full circle as we had originally first considered China. But when we had heard that the wait for China was up to 5 years, we pursued other options. At that time, we didn't understand what the Waiting Child/Special Needs program was all about. But in light of the loooong wait for Taiwan, we decided to look back at the China program, specifically the WC program and that is where we found the little special girl!

This has all come to pass in the past couple of weeks!

On 9/8/2010 - We requested her file. Although we are not logged into China, we could view her file because she had been waiting just over 30 days.

On 9/11 - We had our Dr. review her file.

On 9/16 - We asked to be matched.

On 9/17 - We were "locked in" with her by our agency.

On 9/18 - Our LOI (letter of intent) was received by the China.

On 9/21 - PA - We received pre- approval from China! It only took 3 days??!!

Now we have until mid December to complete our China home study, dossier, and I 800. So we will be scrambling to get all of that done.

We are very excited about this and of course, nothing is set in stone until she is in our arms. Or at least receiving our LOA (letter of approval) would be great. That probably won't be until January. Then travel would be a couple months after that, I am assuming.

Hopeful, happy news!

I cannot post a name or photo of this little precious sweetie. But she is 2 1/2 years old and so cute!! I can't wait to share more, but that is all for now.

THE GOOD OF THE WAIT

I wanted to express some positive thoughts regarding our long wait. I am positive that the orphanage has the children's needs at the forefront of their plans, there is no question of that. And although the wait to adopt from Taiwan has become really long and families can be looking at 3 - 5 years for a match (less than 2 years ago, the wait was 6 - 12 months for a referral), let me share some positive possibilities of what that might mean for the orphaned children.

- It may mean that more birth moms are getting the support they need to be accepted in society when they have a child out of wedlock.

- It may mean that more birth parents are getting support in order to care for their child.

- It may mean that less children are being abandoned or relinquished.

- It may mean that more Taiwan local families are considering adoption as a positive thing and therefore the children remain in their birth country.

- It may mean more homes for the children who need them!

Isn't that what it is all about, really? Children having a home and family of their own?

Father to the fatherless, defender of widows — this is God, whose dwelling is holy. God places the lonely in families.

Psalms 68:5-6

WE HAVE A NEW BABY NEPHEW!

Welcome Asher! We have a new nephew born to my sister-in-law and her husband, Susanna and Nolan. He is healthy and precious! They live out of state, so we are dying to see him. Fortunately we will see them in 5 weeks at a family wedding!

Sleepy sweet boy

Pops loving his newest grandson

Numbers 6:24 - 26

' "The LORD bless you
and keep you;

the LORD make his face shine upon you
and be gracious to you;

the LORD turn his face toward you
and give you peace." '

BACK TO SCHOOL PICS!

Christina's first day of 10th grade. She is so easy in the morning and gets ready so quick, but still looks as cute as can be!

Matthew's first day of 6th grade. He is a middle schooler now! What a sweetie he is!

Joshua's first day of Pre-K!! He was so excited, he could hardly stand it! Here he is making sure we see his Toy Story backpack.

Okay! Let's go Mom!

This is the "I Can't Wait Face!!"

What a sweet baby face.

He had "homework" for his first day- to bring in a collage of his family. Here he is in the car, ready to roll!

Jacob took this pic of Joshua and I walking in to school.

Waiting to go into his classroom.

Ms. Antmann, his teacher inside the classroom before class begins. Below is the video of Joshua SO excited to go in. This makes me laugh! (you will have to scroll down to the bottom of this page and pause my blog music to hear this, but it is so cute, it will be worth it!)

9 MONTHS WAITING...

We have been waiting 9 months now. That timeline would not be so bad if we were actually hearing of people being matched with children on a regular basis. Since we got on the waiting list, I have only heard of 2 young SN girls being matched and 1 healthy infant girl match on our particular orphanage's group discussion site. Those are not very good numbers. Now, I do know there may be some people adopting from this particular orphanage that may not be on that orphanage's Y*hoo group, who have received referrals. I am sure there are some in other countries as well. But wow! This is just not moving.

Honestly though, I don't really feel very discouraged at heart. In other words, I don't go around feeling down about this at all. I have an awesome family and they keep me so busy and I enjoy every minute of that! I do feel discouraged about the Taiwan program when I check in with any progress it is making, but I don't feel downhearted in general. I just feel more determined to keep our options open and am excited for what God has in store!

We are now seriously discussing opening up a particular new option, of which we feel encouraged. We will keep you posted if and when we move forward with it!

In the meantime, we are making this more than an adoption blog, but a family blog too!

Isaiah 40:31 But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

REGROUP, RETHINK, AND A LITTLE RESEARCH ABOUT OPTIONS

WE ARE CONSIDERING OTHER OPTIONS... CHINA?? FOSTER CARE ADOPTION??

The rumors are that Taiwan is really slowing down and that some families are well passed 3 years waiting. Also the chances of adopting a young (under 5) child without needs is getting slim. (if you are not a young, childless couple.)

After research, we found that there are occasionally young children available through adoption from foster care, if your paper work is ready as soon as they become available. (there is a difference between fostering, fostering to adopt, and adopting from foster care.) In fact I was searching on some sites and found a couple of 3 and 4 year old, healthy, beautiful, African American girls available (I'm sure they'll be snapped up in an instant!). We are very interested in this option.

We are however, struggling with the vision of my original dream and what that means with looking at options. I had a dream about a little Asian girl waiting for me. So, do we wait and wait and hope a little girl will come available, with needs that we can handle? Do we switch to another country and pay more fees to find her? Or did my dream simply lead us on a journey in order to simply open our hearts to adoption?

Some good advice from a few friends said to take steps carefully, and prayerfully and ask God to open doors and/or close doors if needed. So we are thinking to train and get licensed for adoption from foster care. (there are no fees for this), and we will trust God to lead us from there. What do you think??

Meanwhile, we will keep ourselves on the Taiwan waiting list as well.

DISAPPOINTMENT

We received a call from our agency today. Sadly, the little girl that we had requested to be matched with, has been placed with another family. We are all heartbroken and disappointed. Knowing that several families had requested to be matched with her, I prayed that best family for her would be chosen. The family that would be the perfect family to meet her particular needs. I thought that was us! I had such a special feeling for her and I thought she was ours! I have prayed for her and I look at her precious face every day.

I know there is a special little one waiting out there for us, but today, I can't really picture it.

Philippians 4:6-7

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

1 Peter 5:6-7
Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

A DAY AT GATORLAND!

My sister and her son are visiting and we have had so much fun this week. Since I work at Disney, that is always a fun day out when guests visit, but we did something new this week- we went to Gatorland! I have lived here in FL for many years now, but I have never been to Gatorland and I thought it was time we did. We had a great day, and of course the boys loved it! We fed the gators, sat on a gator, watched the Jumparoo show and enjoyed touring the park.

There is often an overpopulation of gators here in FL, and there is a hunting season in order to keep the population under control. So the gators in this park are saved and used for educating people about them, and well of course here in FL, for entertainment purposes.

We all enjoyed learning about the gators, snakes and crocodiles, and seeing how they interact with each other.

Cousin Aaron, Christina, Joshua and Matthew all "screaming" because of the gator behind.

Joshua and Matthew climbing in the big gator mouth.

Christina and Joshua sitting on the real gator!

My sister Polly and I on the gator. Ok, I did feel a little sorry for this gator with all of us sitting on him for a photo, but they promised us that he was very strong and it was not uncomfortable for him.

Jacob even took a turn for a pic.

Gator handler, George, taking a chance with those snapping jaws, and showing us how the gator's lower jaw is the one that snaps!

Here are the gators we were feeding! They were huge! When we threw them the bites of food, they would turn their heads and snap their jaws!

We took a nature walk behind the park on a "bridge trail" way back into the swamp.

This is the beautiful turtle that we saw on the nature walk.

Along the way on our walk, there was a sign that stated we were in an area with a high concentration of water moccasins. Sure enough we saw 4 of them right by the trail. The trail was about a foot above them on the bridge though, so we were safe.

Josh had some fun at the little water park. It was SO HOT (about 100 degrees that day and if you have been to FL in the summer, full humidity), so that water park was a relief!